Hello, iam long time reader but first time poster(i registered few. mins later). Also english is not my native language so iam sorry for gramatical errors etc.

First of all iam playing as Protadin in semi-hardcore 25m guild that is currently at 6/7HC and we are slowly moving to Ragy HC. My gear corresponds to this fact so i have normal/HC items and iam ofc. CTC caped. In the last few days i had couple of rough arguments with our new protection paladin about usage of WoG and about Guarded by the light talent.When iam tanking i usualy do:-pull boss(using SoT as my seal), use Avanging wrath and Divine plea for fast SotR.-use Holy Shield when i can or iam keeping it if there is possibility that boss will have increased dmg in 10-15 seconds.-stack 3 charges of HoPo and use another SotR.-after 30seconds of fight iam switching from SoT to SoI for its heal proc.-from now on iam using WoG whenever it is on CD or iam keeping it on CD when i know that in approx 10 to 15sec. i will take bigger amount of dmg from boss.-if WoG is recharging iam using SotR as "HoPo" dump.

From this way of approach iam getting heal from SoI, but i loose DPS from SoT. WoG is healing me for nice 40Ks and it eventualy creates absorb shield to mittigate some of dmg i will take from next strike. What i loose is DPS from SoT as i mentioned previously paired with 1 lost SotR every 20-30 seconds.

That "other" paly is arguing that WoG will not save him from death and that healers are there to replenish his health and when he dies its healers fault, not his. His Argument about G.b.t.l. talent goes in the same way and he says that 40-50K absorb shield atop his full HP is not going to save him. When we argue about SoT vs. SoI, he calls me a noob that iam even using it. Overall his approach is that he is there to tank the boss and do as much dps as he can. His logic behind this is something like this "if i'll do as much dps as i can, boss will die sooner so healers dont have to heal me too long and they will not run OOM". In fact when i looked to his WoL he was not even using Holy Shield because he didnt know that Holy Shield is now active skill insted of on proc effect(yea... 2+ months after 4.2). Also when i told him what G.b.t.l. actualy does he immediately respeced from G.b.t.l and put those talents to Hallowed Ground for "bigged dps".

What forced me to ask is that according to his statement he is tanking in the way as top protadins do and as theoricrafting says.So iam creating this topic to ask you guys to help me realize if iam doing it wrong and i should take this "do more dps you nab" approach or if i should stick with my way of tanking. Thanks all for reply

Your forgetting the very important fact that the tanks dps matters aswell.Your loosing a LOT of dps by using SoI, its really not worth it, and its heals are pretty damn useless.

While Ragnaros is nerfed, the dps STILL matters and you should be doing everything you can to increase the raids dps, that will do a lot more for the healers mana than SoI/WoGing on CD will do.As for WoG, Its not a bad thing to use, but you shouldnt be using it on CD.

Altho there is times you can use it strategicly, and its mainly when your healers have a lot to do.IF your the one taking ragnaros hits when traps are blown up, you usually wanna have some sort of CD up, WoGing at the same time doesnt hurt.Intermission dps doesnt matter much as long as the adds die, altho here its a lot better throwing it on a dpser who just took a lavabolt rather than yourself.P2 when your running from the Seeds are a good time and place you can use it, but isnt always needed, id save it for if you go low when the healers are busy.2nd intermission, the tank taking the adds do take quite a lot of damage, and its a decent way to mitigate some of that damage, but you prolly wanna be using your CDs there anyway since they are pretty wasted in p3.P3, tank takes like 5hits a minute, you shouldnt be in danger of dying there unless your healers went on vacation, besides, thats the phase you really wanna push the most dps you possibly can.P4, now this is the only phase SoI would actually be kinda usefull, as it would constantly counteract the superheated to some degree, its still not very usefull however.But using WoG on CD is a very bad thing to do as then you might not have it ready when you want it.This phase is the phase where i use WoG the most, sometimes even on others who go low, but the tank healing isnt always that focused so you do run into the risk of dying, so you want to consider WoG atleast, sitting at 3HP just waiting for a hit to bring you low is however a bad idea as you still wanna do as much dps as you can, since dreadflames can become quite hectic in the end during progress.

This is just for rag, but the same applies on every other fight.SoI is NOT worth it, dps IS important.WoG shouldnt be used on CD, but its not a bad tool, you just need to know when to use it.

Thanks for reply Treck. This is what i wanted to hear. I probably magnified my WoG usage but iam prety much doing what you said with WoG. My concern was if its right to take WoG from my skillbar as our other paladin did and focus more on DPS talents which is against my opinion because even small amount of heal in the right time matters. Also thanks for advice about SoI / SoT i suppose that using SoI for mana recharge(if needed) is still viable thanks to more Consecrations

Alther wrote:Thanks for reply Treck. This is what i wanted to hear. I probably magnified my WoG usage but iam prety much doing what you said with WoG. My concern was if its right to take WoG from my skillbar as our other paladin did and focus more on DPS talents which is against my opinion because even small amount of heal in the right time matters. Also thanks for advice about SoI / SoT i suppose that using SoI for mana recharge(if needed) is still viable thanks to more Consecrations

Removing WoG from your bars is a big mistake.It might not be one of your most used abilities, but its important to know when to use it.A good player knows when to use what tool and when, and knows how to use ALL the tools given to him.A "new" player might find it easier to learn when you disregard a few abilities to keep it simple, but its important to add those once you get comfortable with the gameplay.

As for talents, i prefer the "dps" related talents, cuz of 2 reasons.1) Were not progressing anymore, but when we did, dps was extremely important from EVERY player (even some healers went dps oriented speccs to push more)2) Tank deaths are very very rare, and when they happen a WoG shield would not have saved the day.

You could argue that your dps might not save the day eather, but looking at fireland progress, id say it did.

SoI isn't worth it - it's not enough healing to change the way your healers play, and it comes at the cost of a very large amount of DPS.

WoG is a survivability cooldown, just like Holy Shield, Divine Protection, Ardent Defender, and GAnK. Would you remove any of those from your action bars? Hopefully the answer is no. So why would you remove WoG? You shouldn't be using it on cooldown, but you should be using it to help your healers recover from a short burst of damage, or pre-emptively as an absorb shield to mitigate predictable burst.

In short, your co-tank is a moron if he believes half of the things he's told you. Every player should be doing what they can to increase the chance of downing the boss. As a tank, that includes using your cooldowns responsibly and intelligently to help your healers keep you up. The bullshit "it's the healer's job to keep me alive" machismo is the sign of a tank who doesn't understand the basics of his role.

Similar to the original poster, I'm also in a 6/7hc guild that raids 3 times a week.We're just starting to get in to Rag heroic, and I've just returned from a 3 week vacation to Canada. In that time we've recruited another paladin tank (he used to be a healer, but has moved over to tank for us).

I'm looking for some tips as to how I can improve my own performance. I've been tanking since SSC, and reasonably comfortable with my abilities (naga mouse, optimised UI set up for information/playability) but I'd like to ask for a bit of help to play a better game.

Some context that might help:- I'm quite new to Rag heroic, so I'm taking too much world in flames damage atm, and seed damage (aiming to get these down dramatically in the next pass)- I've been toying with 2 mastery trinkets and taking the 4-set prot bonus, but usually I'd take a mastery + stamina trinket (CTC capped)- I'm worried I'm not getting the right balance between using WoG to proc GbtL and ShoR at the moment.